


Rehabilitation

by Tane



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU, Abandonment Issues, Anxiety, Dolphins, I hope, Keith pouts a lot and shiro needs to rest, M/M, Mermen, Mermen AU, Panic Attacks, Rehabilitation, dolphin mermen, merm au, mermaid, mermaid au, sad but also soft, the slowest burn I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2018-11-16 14:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11254821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tane/pseuds/Tane
Summary: Keith had never been to the ocean, and Shiro was snatched from it to entertain humans. Both mermen find themselves in a marine rehabilitation facility.





	1. Chapter 1

_The only reason Keith tolerated being here was he had been promised release._

The transport tank was small, he had to submit to the humiliation of being lifted up and carried into it by people he didn’t know, and every time he asked if they were there yet the ride got longer and longer and longer. He supposed having someone with him was a small mercy, and that he should be thankful the humans didn’t leave him completely alone in the back of a truck for the entire ride. Her phone was the only source of light and he settled into silently staring while she played games and texted people.

He resented finding her presence so comforting so quickly. Humans were not to be trusted. But unlike everyone else who always wanted to talk to him, or watch him do tricks, or tap the glass and scare him, she just sat there, passing the time.

Keith scoffed when the truck came to a stop and through the slowly opening ramp he caught sight of the canvas.

“Can’t you roll this tank close to the new place so I can breach?” he complained, resting his elbows on the glass edge. It would have been easier for him. People had greasy hands, and his tail got stepped on many times in the past. The girl pocketed her phone and hands, looking up at him with a bored look while they waited for the automatic doors to open. Her name was Pidge.

“Nope. It’s too big, and there’s too many steps. It shouldn’t take very long though.”

“That’s what you said about this ride.”

“I can’t control traffic… yet.” Keith believed from how she shrugged that one day it would be possible.

“What do you mean steps? What kind of tank has steps?”

“It’s not a tank. You can stop being so suspicious, this place is way better than the zoo you know.”

“According to you,” he muttered into his elbow, looking away from the pulleys and ropes some others were bringing in and setting up to transport him.

“Are there others?”

She gave him a look over her shoulder, already on her way to duck out “A few others. Look I’ll see you later alright? I gotta go check on something. Try not to smack anyone with your big fat tail.”

Keith didn’t make any promises.

 ---

Transport always made Keith feel like an animal. He hated it. Humans were quick to talk about how merfolk are people, and how they’re sentient creatures worthy of respect. There was a whole infographic about it next to Keith’s tank. In the zoo.  
  
His tail was sticking out of the canvas and it was all he could do not to flap it uselessly and make everything difficult. His head and shoulders stuck out of the other side, where he could see the new place. It was unmistakably closer to the ocean than his previous residence. The salt was on the breeze, the sound of the waves crushing on the shore easily reached his sensitive ears. In the zoo, his tank was underground, in a beautiful water exhibition. The tanks were all transparent, for the visitors to see and admire what they paid for, making them feel like they themselves were under water. Keith had only seen the outside a handful of times.  
  
He was told this place was called ‘Castle Marine Rehabilitation Centre’ and that he wouldn’t be on display anymore. Thus the tanks weren’t tanks per se, but habitats.  
  
As soon as his tail touched water again he pushed past everyone despite some protest, swimming to the very bottom, and was pleased to find out that there was a long way to swim. Hardly any boundaries could be seen in the space outside of rocks and plants. He could go under a rock and emerge in a different cavern, there were fish everywhere and more than he ever had in his tank. The water was properly filtered and a comfortable temperature. Keith found himself smiling. He could spend the entire day exploring, and when he wanted to breach, the outside was right there for him to behold. There was shade, and sun, and air. He felt giddy with it all.  
  
Was this what  release would be like? How could he have been missing so much?

Some primal part of him quietly warred with the pure joy he was experiencing for the first time in a long while. _This couldn’t be right._ It said. _This is too easy._ He tended to agree, but he also wanted to hide under the rocks for a while longer.  
  
\---  
  
Nobody came for him for more than an hour, that was when Keith decided he finally needed to breach for longer than just a gulp of air, exciting and comfortable as the new habitat was.  
  
Pidge was waiting for him at the surface, sitting crosslegged on a small raised platform just above water. Other humans were there too, tending to machinery and squatting on the edges of other habitats. She was obviously waiting for him to say something. Keith crossed his arms over the edge, a safe distance away but not too far. He showed no inclination to be the first to talk. She sighed.  
  
“So how is it?”  
  
“It’s alright.”  
  
“I would say it’s a bit more than alright in comparison, don’t you think?” She said, leaning her elbows on her knees. Keith wondered if her phone was waterproof, then he remembered to look unimpressed again.  
  
“It is bigger. And there are more fish.”  
  
Pidge looked at him now, not a glance-away-from-her-phone at him, but really at him.  
  
“This is a formal invitation for you to arrive at the point.” Keith waited a bit, deciding what was the most important things he wanted to know. Humans always had somewhere to be, and if Pidge had been waiting here she might not stay long.  
  
“How long will it take?”  
  
“It depends on how well you respond to rehabilitation, if you work with us, it could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.” Keith’s jaw tightened. A few months was a long time.  
  
“What’s rehabilitation?”  
  
“It’s a way for us to be sure the animals and merfolk we’re rescuing will be safe back in the wild. Or, in your case, their first time in the wild.” Keith frowned at how practiced that answers sounded. _Where do humans get off thinking they can teach merfolk how to be merfolk?_  
  
“I was promised release,” he said pointedly, “If this goes on for more than a few months, how do I know you’re not just going to keep me here forever?” Pidge was perfectly composed and patient, until her phone blipped in her pocket. She looked at the screen then back at him.  
  
“You’re not the only one here, it’s a big facility, with a lot of cases. Some much worse than yours.” Keith sensed the shift in demeanor, a bitterness in her voice. “They care a lot about maintaining a high success rate, and not wasting resources.”  
  
“Oh,” he said, looking away. That aligned quite well with what he knew of humans. Success rate sounded a lot like profit.    
  
“Oh.” She nodded, returning to her phone. After a moment, she spoke again, still typing.  
  
“It might not be the cleanest operation. But it’s still doing good work. So don’t be difficult, alright?” Keith pushed himself further back into the water, keeping only his hands on the platform.  
  
“Well I haven’t smacked anyone with my ‘big fat tail’ yet, if that’s what you mean.”

She blinked at him for a moment, then smiled. As if the thought of Keith making jokes didn’t occur to her.  
  
“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” She said, and stood up. “I gotta go again. There’s… a case. Just hang tight for a while, adjust… or whatever. Someone will be by tomorrow to start.”  
  
Keith watched her leave, then let himself sink back to the bottom. The deeper he went the less human-made everything looked. Her words disturbed him. 'Rehabilitation’ and ‘don’t be difficult’. Keith knew ‘difficult’ meant don’t inconvenience humans. Don’t talk back to humans. Don’t fight.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I drew some art for mermay and decided to write it up:
> 
>  
> 
> [keith talks to pidge](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/161209513152/mermay-day-26-read-the-fic-on-ao3-rehabilitation)


	2. Chapter 2

Shiro tasted his own blood in the water. His head spun, his senses overwhelmed. He dimly remembered the shark turning away to consume his severed arm, paying no mind to the merman as he sank to the bottom of the tank, clutching what was left of his bicep. His lungs demanded oxygen long before they usually would. Breaching before the fight wasn’t enough. He didn’t win today.

Through the reddish fog and the loopiness of his vision, he could barely make out the handlers barging in from between the masses, putting on the helmets and brandishing the hooks and electrical prods he saw them use a hundred times to tame the beasts. The people who bet on him yelled and spat on the glass, an empty beer bottle sank past him, hitting the floor with a clank. He deserved it. He didn’t win. 

Having dispersed with the shark, hands came for him next. Shiro attempted to flinch away, even all those months being handled and prodded and tied up didn’t shake off his instinctive response to the violation of his personal space. At times he found himself preferring the fights over the humans’ rough direction, herding him from tank to tank, from pool to pool. At least the matches gave him some illusion of control. He knew many of his opponents found an equilibrium, a compromise in the care of their handlers. Made deals and given promises. 

He was given no such consideration during his time in captivity. He was big and strong and at his prime. An endless source of entertainment.

Although the attempt was made he couldn’t, of course, flinch away. His balance was off and his lungs ached for air his tail wouldn’t gather the energy to carry him to get. He let them take him.    
  
\---   
  


There wasn’t any water. Dolphin mermen needed air to breathe but every inch of Shiro was parched now. His voice refused to form in the base of his throat. Had he been screaming?    
  
“Good to have you back, Champion,” a familiar voice somewhere off to the left. He turned his head in its direction, rolling his cheek onto cold steel. An elevated table. “I was sorry to hear about your accident but it did present me with a great opportunity to experiment.” How could her voice sound so fond and so poisonous at the same time? Vision swam when he opened his eyes “I do hope you are comfortable.”    
  
He wasn’t, and he started to say as much, but only a hoarse croak left his mouth. Gradually, feeling started to creep back into his numb body. Along with sensation, memory, in a sudden rush, the air in his lungs felt like a tornado. His tail started to twitch, all the muscles tensed up.    
  
“Take them off,” Haggar said, absently cleaning a scalpel. An assistant came over and unchained Shiro’s arms and tail, stepping back swiftly when he flopped down belly first onto the floor. He looked down at himself, chest and shoulders heaving with shuddering breaths.  _ Arms _ , He had  _ two arms _ . That wasn’t possible. His right bicep was now sporting a metal  _ thing _ , gleaming silver and black, the skin connected to it bloomed with throbbing bruises and cuts. But he could move it, it supported his weight when he leaned on his elbows. His fists clenched.   
  
“You are hyperventilating,” Haggar warned, “I suggest you calm down before I knock you out again.” Unthinkable. His forehead touched the floor, his eyes shut against the glaring lights.  _ Focus. Stay awake, you don’t need this much air.  _ Gradually, his tail stopped moving, his breath evened out.    
  
“What… have you done?” he managed, barely.   
  
“Only the best for my best.” 

  
\---   
  
Gradually, he became used to it. Sometimes he forgot he had it at all. Shiro was granted a grace period, a few weeks of healing and adjusting where he was mercifully not required to fight. Handlers still popped in to make sure he was eating a Champion’s fill when the first few days he refused to touch anything. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of it in the corner of his vision, or brought it to his face, that was enough to make him lose oxygen again.    
  
It was sickeningly easy to move it. The arm felt and worked just like his normal one, even he could recognize its benefit. He wouldn't be able to swim properly with only one arm, wouldn’t be able to fight.    
  
Blessed as the respite had been, It still came too soon when he was ordered back into the ring. The ring tank was circular and deep, deeper than his day tank, and every time he went in something was different. They liked to set scenes for the audience, new environments, new weapons, obstacles. Shiro learned early on he had to utilize every single advantage he could gain against bigger opponents, or straight up beasts. He hated fighting animals the most. Their lack of self awareness put the pressure to perform on his shoulders alone. A shark did not care for applause, it didn’t care when it won. It didn’t know when it maimed The Champion, that they would do this to him.    
  
There, before him, was the same shark he watched devour his arm. She was a big tiger, with a lighter belly and eyes that looked ancient. At least twice as big as him, and then some.    
  
“Glad to have you back with us, Champion,” a commentator’s voice rang uncomfortably through the speakers. Shiro wanted to crush them, their vibration irritating the water. “Or should I save the titles till after he’s proven worthy of them once more. Personally, I have no doubts in my heart tonight.” He sounded so pleased, taunting the audience to care, to invest. “Big as she is, ladies and gentlemen, might she finally be subdued?” Shiro’s skin crawled, the vibrations were getting stronger, their source not quite aligned with the position of the speakers in the tank. The shark sensed it too, something made her shrink away, her tail beating violently as she appeared to be putting some distance between them. She was going to need prodding to give the crowd what they want before Shiro could have his advertized revenge.    
  
Then he felt it too. Full force, the vibration shifted from merely uncomfortable to commanding all of his senses. It was coming from him. The water at his right bubbled and hissed upwards in waves of heat. He looked down only to be blinded by his own arm, now emitting a white-hot glow tinged with purple. The shark turned sharply into the glass, bouncing off it like a dumb animal. There was nowhere to run. The crowd was beside itself.    
  
Shiro closed his eyes, adjusting. Big as she was, she didn’t stand a chance.    


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's more art for this one!
> 
> [losing the arm](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/160991385852/hurting-him-for-mermay-day-23-read-the-fic-on)   
>  [getting a new one](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/161020364742/he-gets-a-new-arm-thanks-galra-3-for-mermay-day)


	3. Chapter 3

Pidge wasn’t there the next morning. The handler who waited for Keith at the edge of the habitat was much taller, had dark skin and unusual hair, one of those colours Keith knew humans liked to paint on themselves. A pen was sticking out of it. She looked like one of his kind in disguise.  
  
Introducing herself as Allura, she came to sit on a chair where Pidge took the floor yesterday.   
  
“It’s Keith right?” She was holding a paper binder in her hands.   
  
“Are you a handler?” He countered, she knew his name.   
  
“No, I’m a psychologist.”   
  
“A what.”   
  
“I talk to people and try to help them understand themselves better.” Keith couldn’t help rolling his eyes. Humans thought they knew everything better than anyone, they came up with a profession for it. “But I’m not here for that today. Although we can talk if you like. I’m here to look at what you’ve been eating at the zoo and see if we can get you started on a better diet, things you’re more likely to catch in the ocean.”   
  
Keith told her, and she looked appalled. She pulled the pen from her hair and furiously put it to work on the papers she brought with her. “Lack of variety” she muttered “Dolphins shouldn’t even be able to _digest that_ .” Something in him perked up seeing her react this way. Keith pushed off the edge and swam a circle around the platform while she wrote. It shouldn’t be this easy for them to win his trust. He didn’t like it. Something was off.   
  
“Can you tell me how big your enclosure was at the zoo?”   
  
Keith told her. Again, she took notes.   
  
“We’re good here for space,” she said, her smile visibly strained. “I know there weren’t other mermen in the zoo, did you have a handler?”   
  
“Yeah,” Keith said, “a bunch.”   
  
“How frequently would they visit you?”   
  
“Two, three times.” for a moment, she looked pleasantly surprised.   
  
“A week?”   
  
“A month.”   
  
Keith took another swim around the habitat, growing more and more agitated. When he came back Allura was putting her notes away. He crossed his arms over the edge again, waiting while she looked thoughtful, rehearsing what she wanted to say in her mind.   
  
“It’s going to be gradual, I don’t want to overwhelm you,” she finally said, “We’re going to adjust your diet and make an exercise plan.” Without prompting from Keith, she explained. “You’re quite small for what is typically average in dolphin mermen your age. I want to focus on that for the first few weeks, get a current going that you can swim against a few times a day for now.”   
  
She stopped talking when she saw his face. He didn’t trust himself to speak. With every word he was getting more and more upset, but talking back to humans was never a good thing, not in his experience.   
  
“Keith…” her voice was disgustingly soft. It occurred to him she might be waiting for him to agree, and not simply filling him in on what is to be done with him.   
  
“Fine.”   
  
“Keith, is there something you want to talk about?”   
  
“I want to see the others.” He said, making himself look at her again. He was sick of talking to humans. “The other merfolk you have here.” She pursed her lips. He wanted to drown her for it.   
  
“That is not a good idea right now. But maybe soon, once you’ve settled in a bit more.” again, disgustingly soft. His tail twitched and he gave in to frustration, turning around and diving for the deep, splashing water in his wake. Her precious notes were safe where she put them away, at least.   
  
Irrationally, he wanted to hurt her. He felt it rise in him like bile before extracting himself from her presence. Years in human captivity made him too weak to keep up with a pod, too small to navigate the hierarchy, too tame. Not for want of his, not by his choice. Not by hers either, but she was the first human to articulate it, the closest to outright saying it. Still with that way they have, of saving face. Apologetic, but not quite. Like it wasn’t their fault, not entirely.   
  
He reached the end of the habitat, where a layer of sand swayed gently at his disturbing approach. He swam all over the place now that he could properly pace his frustration away, like a shark who couldn’t stop moving or else he’d suffocate.   
  
After a while, he felt the water shaping itself into a different rhythm. Something more like how he felt inside. A current started circulating above him, leaving a comfortable space near the bottom and near the top to hide from it, but also giving him the option to either race against it or let it take him.   
  
\---   
  
They turned it off sooner than Keith liked, but he didn’t feel like he could talk to a human without drowning them just yet. He settled for breaching far away from the edges, where he could see if anyone came around but not having to interact.   
  
On his third breach he noticed a small shape was sitting on the platform, dipping her legs in the water. Pidge waved at him when she saw him, but he didn’t immediately come. He didn’t want a repeat of what happened this morning. He didn’t want to deal with wanting to hurt Pidge too.   
  
She stuck around though, the vibration of her movement in the water reaching his sensitive skin like a constant poke. He groaned and swam back up after a while, slightly closer but not within reach.   
  
“I hear you’ve met Allura,” her smile was irritably knowing. Keith stayed silent, half his face in the water, a lurking predator. “It’s okay, she rubs me the wrong way too sometimes, but she means well.”   
  
Having his feelings unexpectedly validated felt good, he noticed again how much easier it was talking to Pidge than any other human he’s ever met. Though he kept to the water still. She kept smiling, and it soon became apparent it was because she was holding off a laugh.   
  
“You splashed her good,” she snickered, “she was wearing a new shirt too.” Unable to hold it off anymore, she let the laughter out and took off her glasses when her eyes started to water.   
  
“She said I was small.”   
  
“He speaks!”   
  
“I could splash you too you know.”   
  
“Whatever, go ahead.” her hair and clothes were already wet, her feet bare. Had she been swimming? Keith dipped down and back up again to get his hair out his eyes. He didn’t like the possibility of humans coming to swim with him. Too much like the zoo. But Pidge didn’t make any attempts to get further in the water, for now, she was safe.   
  
“Did you just come here to have a laugh then?” He said, watching her retract her legs from the water and put her elbows on her knees again, leaning forward. This way of sitting made her look younger than she sounded.   
  
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, you made my day. But maybe don’t do that again, she really wants to help you know?”   
  
“She talked like the people at the zoo,” Keith said after a while.   
  
“That’s because she’s _been_ them.”   
  
There it was again, that anger rising in him.   
  
“She’s not anymore though,” she quickly added, seeing his reaction. “But it helps that she knows how things are in there. She’s good at what she does, let her work.” He turned to swim away right there, but she yelled his name after him urgently. He hated himself for how he stopped without thinking and looked back. She waved for him to come up again and he did. Slowly.   
  
“No Keith, that’s not the reason I came here.” she said, motioning him to come closer. “I wasn’t going to say anything but Allura said you were pretty upset so uh…” She looked around to see if anyone was there. Keith found himself floating closer, his anger momentarily suppressed for curiosity.   
  
“We’re bringing in another dolphin merman,” she said quietly. Seriously. “I can’t make any promises. But I know what you want. I’ll try to make it happen.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No art for this one. I got kind of upset writing this.


	4. Chapter 4

Shiro had won all of his fights since returning to the ring, he hadn’t tried escaping once in what was probably months. Hadn’t given the handlers any trouble despite the irritable increase in security around him now that his weaponized arm was being taken into account. He certainly hadn’t done anything to deserve _this._  
  
The restraints had no slack, the tiniest movement threatened to sprain his one remaining wrist. The prosthetic hand had been secured right up against his side so that activating it would mean burning his own tail. He didn’t understand.  
  
He was beginning to hyperventilate again, every time the humans took him out of the water he had to fight to keep the turmoil in his lungs at bay. Someone came by and stuck a needle in his left arm, injecting something cold into his vein, paralyzing more and more of him as it traveled up and down his bloodstream.    
  
_‘They’re taking my other arm’_ was the last thought in his head before his hearing faded, his eyelids slid shut, and his mind drifted away.  
  
\---  
  
They had to get the police involved. Pidge hated waiting but the proper court orders had to be signed, all the paperwork done, the legal investigation conducted. She hated knowing the merman was there, and there was nothing they could do but wait. She hated knowing he was suffering while they twiddled their thumbs waiting for the red tape to slack.  
  
The operation bristled with all sorts of illegal activities. Illegal gambling, trade, drugs, technology, there was a lot to be gained by making this bust legitimate, so the police were taking their sweet damn time while the merman sank deeper and deeper in their grasp. They knew about the fights, but since merfolk weren’t legally citizens, or in fact, legally people, the case wasn’t deemed severe enough to jeopardize the entire endeavour by busting it too early without the proper evidence.  
  
When their inside contact reported what they were planning to do to him they had enough. They replaced his arm since it had been chewed off by a shark, but purposefully and unnecessarily amputating his other arm was finally, _finally_ enough cause.  
   
Allura came back from talking to the detectives and policemen in charge, trying to hide her glee from the somberness of the situation. After hours of waiting outside this godforsaken back-alley permanently piss smelling warehouse, they were clear to go in. She tapped the big man standing next to Pidge on the shoulder and Hunk gave her a reassuring smile, getting the transport tools carted after them.  
  
It was just as filthy on the inside as it was on the outside. Huge, and maze-like. The walls were lined with stock of all kinds, like a shitty black market Ikea. There was a lot of that for the police to cover, they were however assured into a section more fit for their genre of expertise.  
  
Some of it was just many tanks gathered together, some of it looked like it tried to be a habitat, but the bars and glass dividing it into easy access sections made it into a marine prison. The rest of Hunk’s team spread out to cover that miserable pit while the three of them advanced to another section, the one their inside source told them the merman was taken to when it all went down.  
  
He was lying on the floor, with their contact sitting at his side, pouring water over him. It took them a long time to get the right clearance and nobody could be spared to help get him back in the water. Pidge rushed forward to check the merman over, feeling his rough breathing and pulse, his eyelids fluttered and pupils darted under them, deep in what looked like restless REM sleep.  
  
“They drugged him before I could do anything,” the detective explained, “But I have been here the entire time with him.”  
  
“Thank you,” Pidge said, taking the water bucket from him and pouring the rest over where his tail began to dry up. They needed air and had lungs like humans but being outside for too long wasn’t good for them either. Dehydration, fever and hyperventilation were huge risk factors, aside from how the conditions here were atrocious even inside a tank full of water. Allura kneeled at his other side and started bandaging the merman’s visible wounds. Rubbing against the transport canvas wouldn’t be ideal for healing.  
  
“It’s good to be done with this,” she said, knowing he was doing undercover work there for a while now.  
  
The detective stepped back, happy to be relieved but tired, so very tired from all the things he had seen. He looked like he had just been in a fight. He probably was.  
  
“This organization has deeper roots than this one warehouse, even though it was a big branch. There are more. I hope not to have to contact your centre in the future but I am afraid it is not behind us just yet.”  
  
Pidge nodded, her eyes running over the bruises and scars the merman had. He was going to need a lot of care, they should have come for him sooner.  
  
Hunk stepped in, getting the girls’ attention once Allura was done.  
  
“Lets get him out of here.”    
  
\---  
  
Shiro’s eyelashes had crusted over with salt, opening them felt like breaking glass. His face wasn’t submerged in whatever tank he was in at the moment like the rest of him, which prompted to try and push himself under. Something was wrapped around his chest and under his arms though, letting him only briefly dip before bobbing back up above the surface like a rubber duck.  
  
“Hold on,” a voice said, followed by some shuffling around. It sounded younger than the handlers of the facilities he was usually kept at. The water helped melt the salt, and he used his fingers to rub the rest of it off his eyes, lips, ears and nostrils. Fingers. He still had fingers, _real_ fingers on his left hand. He kept them on his face a moment longer, silently thanking the gods. They didn’t take his arm. So what the hell happened?  
  
The water whirred, waving around him in sync with whatever rhythm this transport was keeping. They were inside a truck. With a snap, a release of tension, he felt himself sink down to the bottom, the strap holding him up followed loosely behind. The girl who spoke before now stood close to the glass, gesturing.  
  
“You can take it off, just press that bit over there,” he heard her say, muffled by the water, no speakers, no feedback or uncomfortable vibrations messing up his echolocation. He took the strap off and let it fall, then floated away. There wasn’t much room but his dorsal fin found the back of the opposite side in the tank and he let himself lay there, where he could see her, and also rest.  
  
“I’m sorry about that, you weren’t coming up for air on your own so we had to improvise. My name is Pidge.”  
  
He frowned. They never did that before, they didn’t care about him knowing their names, at least not the transport people. She looked expectant, like she didn’t know he was The Champion.  
  
He had to search for it, it’s been so long since anyone wanted to know his name. So long his mouth almost forgot how it sat on his tongue.  
  
“I’m… I’m Shiro.”   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ship Shiro x rest and chillaxation  
> Maybe you noticed who the detective was...


	5. Chapter 5

The ride couldn’t be described as pleasant, but Shiro’s company certainly was. Pidge was a great conversation partner, he couldn’t remember the last time he could freely talk to someone without being ordered around. It was nice to just, talk.  
  
She explained to him how he was rescued, and apologised profusely for the length of time that it took. He confirmed seeing the detective around posing as a handler, it made sense to him now, he was always oddly kind to him in small, offhand ways. Slacking his restraints, patching him up after fights, his electric prodding stick was always off. Apparently a fight broke after Shiro was drugged on that table, putting a stop to whatever they were planning to do to him. He owed this human his other arm.  
  
“We’re probably going to work with him again in the future,” Pidge said somberly, “That warehouse wasn’t their only branch, and they aren’t done dealing merfolk and sea creatures either. Some of them also evaded arrest…” She took out her phone for a moment, he’s always been curious about human technology. She caught him staring. “I’m just telling Allura you’re awake, she’s the one who bandaged you when we got there, you’ll see her soon.”  
  
He nodded. Pidge explained to him they weren’t taking him to the ocean, he understood why. He would need his strength if he were to go back to migrating and swimming for weeks and months at a time with a pod. He needed to heal, and he was too tired to be suspicious, Pidge had shown him nothing but kindness so far, same as the undercover handler, and that Allura person. He wasn’t sure if this was safe, but surely it was better than what he had before. And right now he’d take whatever he can get.  
  
After some time the truck stopped, there was a knock on the door and it began to open. Three people waited on the other side, Pidge got out of their way as two of them walked in, carrying transport tools with them.  
  
“Shiro, this is Hunk and Lance,” She said, before hopping off the edge to stand beside a third person, “And this is Allura.”  
  
“It’s great to meet you, Shiro,” She said, giving him a small wave. Her hands were full of papers. She said his name a little different than how Pidge did. He didn’t care though, it made him happy to hear it said back to him so much in such a short amount of time. He needed to get used to hearing it again. “Hunk and Lance will get you settled in, we’ve got a medical tank set up for the night, tomorrow we’ll see about getting you some more space.” Shiro nodded again, grateful.  
  
The two humans who replaced pidge lowered a large canvas sheet into the transport tank, then instructed him to lie on top of it between the ropes on each side. He did as he was told, then the canvas lifted up around him on a pulley system, taking him with it.    
  
It was fine for the first few moments, he was familiar with it and the concept of transport wasn’t as rattling and traumatic as it had been the first few times he had to endure it. But as soon as he was out of the water, it happened again. Gradually, his muscles began to tense, his tail twitched, and his lungs, though full of air, began to beg for more. He saw the human’s mouths moving and their strained expressions trying to hold him when his whole body started to shake. His head spun and his lungs burned, his tail beating powerfully against nothing. There should have been water resisting him but it wasn’t there, it wasn’t there, it wasn’t there.  
  
The humans were shouting now. Shiro didn’t realize it at first, but he was on the floor, rolling off of the truck’s cargo ramp and onto cold asphalt. He was breathing hard but his lungs felt like a vaccum in his chest, the fall didn’t even register. Hands came then, like they always did, three pairs of them, and pushed his flailing limbs and tail down. A fourth pair grabbed his bicep and he felt the needle go in like a punch.  
  
\---  
  
“What the heck was that?” Lance shouted, retracting his hands as soon as Allura gave them the all clear, one of them covering his cheek. The merman’s fight subsided as the sedation did its work. “Did his hand just explode?”    
  
“It… man it burned straight through the canvas,” Said Hunk, letting go of Shiro’s tail and looking mournfully at the tools’ remains over his shoulder.  
  
“Nearly burned straight through _us_ , Hunk, you’re worried about the canvas?”  
  
“What happened?” said Pidge, watching Allura repack a tranquilizer gun.  
  
“Panic attack,” Allura replied, like it was obvious. “I would have preferred you guys put him back in the tank so we could talk him through it but this is… new.”  
  
Pidge moved over to cradle Shiro’s head, watching his chest heaving slower and slower as his breath evened itself out. Hunk and Lance were sent to get a spare unit.  
  
“How much did you give him?” She asked. Allura’s concerned expression made more sense if Pidge thought of it as slightly guilty.    
  
“Double,” she said quietly. Pidge glared. “He is large and he might have hurt someone!” She glared some more but looked back down at him, conceding. It was fair. Allura did what she had to. She just wished they didn’t have to knock him out so much in one day.  
  
“This will be a problem,” Pidge pointed out, this time without malice. “You know he won’t come up for air on his own again tonight. Someone has to stay with him.”  
  
“I will, it was my decision to tranq him,” Allura volunteered. Pidge gave her A Look.  
  
“No, no you go home once we’re done here. I was going to stay up anyway, and you’re useless when you’re tired.”  
  
“Are you sure?” Pidge waved away Allura’s  half hearted protests, and she let her. They waited for the boys to come back in silence, watching Shiro breathe.  
  
\---  
  
Keith blinked up at the surface, Pidge was there for some reason, in the middle of the night, calling his name.  
  
“What is it?” he asked, breaching right next to the platform without hesitation. He couldn’t quite figure out if the smile Pidge was wearing was actually happy.  
  
“I need your help with something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pidge likes to make the most out of a bad situation ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	6. Chapter 6

Keith stared at it. Pidge was leaning her elbows on the upside down U shaped handle of an industrial cart. Just a simple low platform and four wheels.    
  
“You have to be kidding me,” he said, swimming away from the edge so he could get a better look. “It’s for crates, isn’t it?” Pidge sighed deeply, leveling Keith with the most unimpressed look he had ever been on the receiving side of.    
  
“I can’t operate the rig on my own, do you want to see him or not?” She said, impatient. Keith swam back after a minute of quiet irritation and put his hands on the edge. Aside from humans actually picking him up with their bare hands, this had to be the worst mode of transport he was ever subjected to.    
  
One beat of his tail catapulted him onto the cart, while Pidge braced it with her foot. It wasn’t graceful, and his skin stung from the biting cold of the metal under his belly, but they got it going. Slowly at first, his tail dragged on the floor and Pidge had to avoid tripping over it as she pushed, but soon she got into a rhythm and the cart swayed only a little as they rolled through the facility.    
  
They passed a few other habitats, all walled up and private like his, made for the comfort of its occupants and not for display. Keith had to admit the privacy was refreshing but in the past week something sad and pathetic in him began to miss the casual company of strangers at the zoo. He could see the visitors just as well as they could see him, and even though most of the time he couldn’t stand them, sometimes he wished they wouldn’t go at the end of the day. Most times. Their chatter a constant grounding presence in his routine. He caught himself considering telling Allura, then promptly perished the thought.    
  
There were many other doors and labs and equipment rooms, every surface, every plane washed out in the dim bluish night lighting. It was enough for Pidge to see where they were going without Keith having to use echolocation. Eventually the cart skidded to a stop at the base of a big glass tank, this one see-through, and at first appeared to be empty. But when Keith rolled his head up he could see a big shape bobbing gently on the surface of the water near the edge.    
  
They used a squeaking and creaking skeletal elevator to get up. Soon as he could, Keith rolled off the cart for a closer look, hands on the edge, tail dangling off the catwalk’s other side in mid air.   
  
The merman was suspended by a strap around his chest, holding him face up on the surface of the tank. Keith’s eyes took in the many bandages he was covered in, the scar on his face, the white of his hair, before landing on what was obviously some kind of human-made prosthesis. He didn’t notice his own knuckles going white squeezing the edge, his tail twitching. He didn’t notice Pidge coming to sit by his side until she spoke.    
  
“He told me his name is Shiro.” Keith didn’t look her way. His eyes were stuck somewhere on the break between the merman’s shoulder and the beginning of that metal arm. He looked raw and helpless. Humans were impossibly, unimaginably cruel.    
  
“Why isn’t he waking up?” he asked, quietly seething.   
  
“We had to tranq him, also he’s probably exhausted. He had a panic attack during transport and that arm of his burned through the rig. Almost burned through our handlers.”    
  
It wasn’t right. None of it was right. It maddened Keith how rational their reasoning was, that he agreed with it, and yet seeing the merman, Shiro, like this filled him to the brim with indignation and grief. Pidge seemed to see right through it.    
  
“I know how upsetting this is,” she said, soft. Different from Allura though, not like he was made of glass. “I wish we could have gotten him out sooner, and easier. But he’s here now, we’re going to take good care of him. Do you still want to help?”    
  
Keith nodded.   
  
“Get in.”    
  
He hesitated. He did want to help, but some basic part of him told him it was rude and wrong to invade Shiro’s tank like this. He would absolutely hate this were the tables turned.   
  
Pidge did groan at this.     
  
“Oh what? Did you think I carted your ass over here in the middle of the night just so you could oogle him? He needs his bandages changed, and I can’t dive without a spot. You want to help, this is it.”   
  
“Alright. Fine. Just give me a…” He looked at the sleeping merman, mumbled an apology, then slid in.    
  
Under Pidge’s instruction, they worked on removing all the dirty bandages first. She covered Shiro’s arms and upper body from the surface, while Keith handled his tail and back. He was easily half a tail longer, and broader than Keith, there was a lot of skin to cover. When it was done it became apparent that Allura didn’t have time to do much more than quick isolation, as many of the wounds were still crusted over with older blood, some were irritated with infection, and according to Pidge a few required stitches.     
  
He lingered by the surface to watch Pidge dab disinfectant on a burn at Shiro’s right hip bone, retaining what he could to recreate the treatement underwater. She finished cleaning it then used a sterile waterproof pad to cover it. She was frowning the entire time and Keith let out a sharp exhale when he realized that wound was probably self inflicted.    
  
When everything was done, Keith breached back out on the catwalk and waited for Pidge to get the cart and operate the elevator. He found himself absurdly glad not to swim in the medicine infused waters anymore, as well as no longer having to trespass on Shiro’s territory and personal space. He liked to think the other merman looked better now, that their work could give him at least some relief. For a little while.    


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good first date? Do this again sometime?
> 
> I should really make art for this, I have a good visual on Keith getting carted around by smol smol Pidge lmao


	7. Chapter 7

Allura gathered Pidge in her arms, one under her back and one under her knees and lifted. Gently. Her feet were bare of her usual high heels to keep as quiet as possible walking on the metal platforms of Shiro’s tank.  
  
The merman was still asleep, in that unsettling floating position they put him in so he could breathe. It reminded Allura of dead goldfish in children’s bowls. Still she wasn’t going to wake him, the tranquilizer dose should have naturally worn off about an hour ago which meant he needed the rest. Pidge however, she prefered not to have so high up, where she could either plummet ten feet to the ground or roll into the water.  
  
“You didn’t even use a safety line,” she mumbled disapprovingly, adjusting the sleeping girl in her grip so her head was leaning on her shoulder and not bobbing around hitting things. Allura also had a strong suspicion Pidge dabbled in making unauthorized use of the diving equipment, since all of shiro’s bandages were magically fresh.  
  
It wasn’t the first time Pidge pulled an allnighter by someone’s tank. Waiting for the cases to wake up or to initiate interaction was kind of her signature move. Whereas Allura prefered giving them their distance and time to adjust on their own first before engaging. She couldn’t deny the results it sometimes brought in, but their conflicting styles clashed often enough to spark many rounds of the same, chronically unresolved argument. She will be pissed when she wakes up in Allura’s office.  
  
  
  
That done, she turned to check on the habitats, forgetting her bag and heels where they were for the moment as it was still too early. Heaven forbid the belugas wake up.  
  
The dawn slowly creeped up through the windows but not enough to disable the night lighting. Everything was still reflecting that soft blue glow Allura rarely got to really experience as she never came by at night. The quiet was unsettling but informative. Ambient splashing noises and soft mutterings indicated not everyone was asleep. It stopped when she got closer to Keith’s habitat, the merman undoubtedly sensing her approach. She took the stairs up and settled a towel to sit on where she usually put up a chair.  
  
Not a sound from below.  
  
“Keith.”  
  
Nothing. She waited a minute before trying again.  
  
“I know you’re awake,” she said, her voice a knowing sing-song she believed would get to him.  
  
Still nothing. Allura couldn’t help thinking Pidge might have had a better result here, but she wasn’t about to force Keith to interact if he didn’t want to. She stood up, folding the towel neatly to hang nearby. _Well, maybe one last thing_ .  
“Alright, I hope you get some sleep before the handlers come in today.”  
  
She looked down at the water hopefully, ready to leave, but then he came up, breaching just enough for the water to touch his chin. Defensive.  
  
“What handlers?”  
  
She smiled, pleased.  
  
“You’ve seen them around I’m sure, they helped with your transport. Hunk and Lance.” Keith’s brows furrowed a little, trying to remember, but coming up empty.  
  
“It’s okay, they’ll come in late today, it’s been quite a night,” it was hard reading his body language when most of him was submerged, but she thought the quirk in his features wasn’t quite surprise, nor curiosity. She’s seen him curious, when he looked at her hair, when they talked about his rehabilitation. This wasn’t it.  
  
“Why are you here so early?” he asked, changing the subject.  
  
“Looking in on Pidge, she stayed the night. Did she wake you?”  
  
“No,” he said quickly, shifting. He didn’t ask after Pidge either.  
  
Allura watched him sinking down lower so that just his eyes were above surface. He was uncomfortable, and even though she was curious, she didn’t want to push too hard yet, he wasn’t exactly warming up to her. It was too early to get splashed.  
  
“Well okay. You should get some sleep.”  
  
He took that as a dismissal, and dove back under, with that whole body turn dolphin mermen often did for greater momentum. Something caught her eye for a second before he disappeared. A slight bruising on the tailfin, just a darker smudge under the skin on the ventral edge. Her hands itched for her notes to write her thoughts but her bag was still by Shiro’s tank.  
  
Her next stop before she could hopefully get some of his paperwork done.  
  
\---  


Shiro woke up slowly, hazed from the sedatives, again with that tightness on his chest and dryness in his face. Without opening his eyes, his hands found the strap and engaged the release mechanism, allowing him to sink.  
  
Sun. Not fully up, gentle on the skin of his eyelids.  
  
His eyes opened a crack. The absolute lack of vibration in the water told him he was alone, the surface was barely moving from his slow descent. He floated into a patch of shade from where he could comfortably watch his surroundings. It was definitely an indoor tank, but there were windows lining the walls. Outside he could see the telling lines of light reflecting from the surfaces of many other water sources, looking much bigger than his, with only the top visible, their depth impossible to tell where it extended into the ground.  
  
He couldn’t help but think they looked very easy to escape, if one set his mind to it.  
  
After a while he decided to breach, testing his sore muscles and rubbing some feeling into his lazy fins. His lungs filled with air and smell as he hooked his elbows over the edge, letting himself stretch. His entire body stung, the scent of medicine heavy all around him in the water and under every patch and bandage. Someone did this while he was out. Someone made sure he could breathe while he was unconscious, like Pidge did during transport. Instead of just leaving him to shrivel up outside then dump him back in when he awkoe.  
  
Relief washed over him even through the soreness and pain. He could come up and breathe on his own terms, he could doze off right where he was if he wanted to, staring into the lovely outside. It was probably his imagination, but he could swear the ocean wasn’t very far from there, the salt from the tanks perhaps, but also in the air, stronger, more present.  
  
His metal fingers tapped on the glass absently, the more he became aware of it the more he remembered concrete bruising his dorsal fin, sound of ripping canvas, hands pinning him, the needle, the panic.  
  
“Good morning, Shiro,” a voice said from somewhere beneath him, Shiro pushed himself a little more over the edge so he could look down. That woman, Allura, was there, picking some things from the floor at the base of his tank.  
  
“Hello,” he replied quietly. Her smile made him weary, he was pretty sure her hair was the last thing he saw before passing out. She was the one to do it. Looking at Allura his brain immediately conjured up an image of Haggar. The similarities were so striking he struggled to shake the connection off.  
  
“Would it be alright if I came up there?” She asked, pulling her shoes on.  
  
Shiro hesitated only a little before nodding. As long as she didn’t get too close and he could stay in the water, he could handle this. She went up the steps and settled on the catwalk, conscious of his personal space to his relief. He stayed where he was, hanging onto the edge, his tail moving only enough to keep him at a near horizontal stretch under the surface tension.  
  
“I don’t know if you remember, but my name is Allura,” she said, placing her hands in her lap, nonthreatening body language. “I’m sorry for what I did to you--”  
  
“I understand why you did it,” Shiro said, cutting her explanation short and surprising them both.  He looked at Allura and smiled, and she did too. His forgiveness was genuinely sought after, and for that he was grateful. “I know I could have hurt someone. I didn’t mean to.”  
  
“You were having a panic attack,” she informed him. “It’s common in humans too, severe anxiety following a traumatic event, or period of time.”  
  
_A period of time._  
  
“How long was I there, with them? Do you know?”    
  
“Not yet, I still have to look at the data and…” she paused, calculating in her head. It occurred to him she was probably sparing him human concepts she didn’t think he would be interested in or understand. “Perhaps close to a year.”  
  
“A year…”  
  
She let him process this in silence, digging a notepad out of her bag and putting her pencil to it. He noticed the visual of Haggar no longer overlapped with hers in his mind, incompatible. Instead someone else came to mind. A human from before. A friend. Always with a notepad, always with the data. But he couldn’t remember whom.  
  
He watched her close it and return her focus to him.  
  
“We’re going to figure this out,” she said, resolve rolling off of her, an inspiring brand of confidence. “I want to give you some more time here in the medical tank, a few more days, a week perhaps, to heal. Until then we’ll work on the panic attacks, see if we can contain them enough for transport into a better space later.”  
  
Shiro nodded, then looked down at what really bothered him.  
  
“Will you be able to help me with this?” he asked, showing her his arm. He didn’t get it close, just lifted it a little off the glass. He could still see her recoil uneasily, turning the motion into getting up to her feet as if she was going to do it anyway.  
  
“We’ll… uh... have a doctor look at you today, he’ll be able to tell us more about how we should proceed on that front. It isn’t exactly my area of expertise.”    
  
“Right, thank you,” Shiro said as she shouldered her bag. The strain seemed to leave her face at that, her eyes relaxed.  
  
“You’re welcome, Shiro.”  
  
\---  
  
Pidge woke up disoriented, her eyes searching the space she fell asleep in but coming up short. This wasn’t Shiro’s tank, it was the couch in Allura’s office.  
  
“Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is turning out to be bigger than I planned and also a much slower burn. YOLO I guess. But! Here's a couple of sketchdumps including art for this fic by yours truly who was bored on a plane
> 
> [Sketchdump 1](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/163405314097/some-sketches-from-my-sheef-merm-au-reabilotation)   
>  [Sketchdump 2](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/163422059167/more-rehabilitation-doodles-from-my-second-flight)
> 
> Some links for Rehabilitation related stuff on tumblr can be found here, updating as I add more stuff to it!
> 
> [tumblr masterpost](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/160982566737/sad-and-soft-sheith-merm-au)


	8. Chapter 8

Keith couldn't sleep.  
  
The moment Pidge left after depositing him back in his habitat he’s been on edge. He finally got to meet another merman just like him and humans had completely ruined him. The scars, the panic attacks, the arm, even his hair was cropped short, like a human’s. He’s been shaped and molded and disfigured and Keith just couldn’t let that go.   
  
Rationally he knew he shouldn’t blame Pidge and Allura and the Centre, he tried not to be angry with all humans on Shiro’s behalf, on all of merkind’s behalf. Not even the ones at the zoo were this horrible. But at that moment, it was easier to imagine all of them as one big lump to hate. His tail beat the water aggressively, swimming near the surface. Holding his breath underwater became impossible when every other moment his lungs spasmed like they hadn’t in a long time, a threat of inhaling water. When he breached he could feel the tears running down his cheeks.   
  
When Allura came he quickly dove for the bottom, pretending to be asleep, but she was insistent and soon enough his lungs were craving air like they did all night, unable to settle down. It was in part that _and_ her teasing remarks that led him back to the surface.   
  
Changing the subject bought him enough time to find something else to be pissed at, making his rude escape plausible. He had a complicated relationship with handlers and she probably knew all about it so it wasn’t like that was a secret. Not like the one Pidge asked him to keep. It wasn’t his nature to bottle things up, but more than anything, he wanted to be able to see Shiro again.   
  
\---   
  
“You’re Keith right?”   
  
He vaguely remembered the bigger one, Hunk. The one who chattered Keith’s ears off the entire time he was being transported. Lance was… less memorable, possibly because Hunk’s dominating the conversation commanded all of his attention at the time. The connection between their lateness and Shiro’s arrival at the centre was pretty obvious. Though they wouldn’t admit it. Allura’s orders no doubt.   
  
“Yes, obviously you are,” Hunk answered his own question, Keith looked up at them with unimpressed amusement. They were easy with each other’s space, Lance leaning one long arm on Hunk’s big shoulder, looking like it was all he could do to stay awake. “It’s not like there’s a whole lot of dolphin mermen around here, right?”   
  
Lance gave hunk a look of exhaustion that breached the boundaries of the physical. They both had dark circles under their eyes and Lance had an actual bruise on the side of his face too. Keith suspected where it came from, but remained silent.   
  
“Right,” he agreed with his friend. “Buddy can you go get the current running?”   
  
It was much later in the day. Keith managed a couple hours of sleep, but between all of them it seemed like there wasn’t enough to go around. The moment Hunk left Lance slumped down heavily on the platform, rubbing at his eyes. Keith remained where he was, expectant, suspicious. Some distance away, eyes following his every move.   
  
“Look lets skip the predatory shtink alright? I’m not going in if you don’t want me to,” he said, leaning forward and somehow making it casual, instead of threatening. Like he couldn’t see Keith very well and needed a closer look. His hand glossed over his bruised cheek before he put it on his hip. Keith blinked. It wasn’t quite what he was expecting from handlers but they were sometimes sneaky. A promise to him now meant nothing if they were going to break it later. Lance looked pleased at the reaction though.   
  
Keith rolled his eyes and swam a bit closer, keeping upright and folding his hands against his chest. It wasn’t a comfortable position to keep with his head out of the water, but it was something he’d seen humans do when they wanted to look dangerous.   
  
“I don’t want you to.” Was it really this easy? At home handlers wouldn’t come near him ever since he made it clear he would drown the next person who tried. But coming to that point took some time.   
  
Under his tailfin, the water whirred to life, the current waking up and scattering all the fish in the habitat. Hunk stumbled back shortly after, panting from climbing the stairs to the platform.   
  
“That’s fine I guess,” Lance shrugged, bumping fists with Hunk without taking his eyes off of Keith. “Why don’t you go into the current, do a few laps?”     
  
It was what he wanted to do anyway. The current was exactly what he needed, what could have helped him pass the horrible tension of last night. Keith went against it, beating his tail with everything he had. He didn’t want to stop just to see what the handlers had to say. Were it up to him he’d stay in it forever. But activity like this required frequent breaching, too frequent to avoid them for long. Finally he came out to the surface, having done way more than just a ‘couple’ laps, panting.   
  
Hunk and Lance were huddled together where he left them, looking at a phone in Hunk’s hands. Keith realized belatedly, with some indignation, what they were watching.   
  
“Look, it’s you,” Hunk didn’t seem to notice how Keith flinched away when he extended his arm to show him, or be bothered by the reaction, and soon enough Keith settled down. It was a video of him swimming just now, the current an invisible resistance making him look silly, beating his tail so hard and covering so little ground.   
  
“Were you trying to impress us? Because you really didn’t have to stay in there so long,” Lance said, wearing a smile Keith had to resist slapping off of him. Lance took the phone from Hunk and rewinded the video to watch again.   
  
“You’re pretty good at keeping your breath actually, it’s been what, four minutes? An active four minutes without air…” He whistled. “I bet we could double this, with some exercise.”   
  
“I thought this was the exercise,” Keith said.   
  
“It is,” Lance replied, “But there’s more we can do to speed up the process. If you let me in I can show you what to do.” He paused expectantly.   
  
“No.”   
  
“Fine,” his frustration not escaping the tone, Lance got up and went off somewhere beyond Keith’s line of sight. Hunk watched him go then turned to Keith.   
  
“Anyway do you see that fish over there?”   
  
Keith followed Hunk’s pointing finger to a reddish brown fish that hustled by like it heard Hunk call it out.   
  
“Get yourself up to four of these a day, along with whatever else you want to snack on. They’re good for protein, and all sorts of good things really,” he explained fondly. Lance then returned with three black straps connected to what looked like decorative rocks. They were round and blue and had something written on them in white paint.   
  
Keith stiffened when he brought them to the edge of the platform.   
  
“Oh relax would you?” Lance scoffed, rolling two of them in the water with a careless splash. They quickly sank to the bottom, worrying the sand there. “Now pay attention, you don’t want to hurt yourself doing this.”   
  
Lance picked up the third strap and lifted it a few times, almost connecting wrist to shoulder but not quite. The weight followed heavily in the air. Keith could see muscle standing out with every motion, showing through his deceptively lite build.   
  
“You’re not really using your arms when you swim,” Lance said, switching arms and demonstrating a different motion. “It’s a common way to do it if you spend your life in a tank. But no good for open ocean, with stormy weathers and currents going all in different directions.” Lastly, he stood up and put his hands behind his back, holding the strap in both, then lifted up and down a few times before letting that drop in the water with the others. His breathing was hitched a little when he was done, collapsing back to sit on the platform and leaning on Hunk.   
  
“It’s easier in the water.”   
  
Despite his initial misgivings, Keith watched the routine carefully, memorizing the motions. Lance made some good points even if they were infuriating. It wasn’t his fault he spent his life in a tank.   
  
“That one is heavier than the other two,” Keith observed, catching the vibration from the third weight’s fall. Lance lifted his head from Hunk’s shoulder, and that smile was back. Like a trap.   
  
“That one’s for your tail. Don’t touch it unless you let me go in and show you how to do it.”   
  
“Nice try, handler. You’re not getting in.” Keith insisted, liberally infusing his tone with venom.   
  
He could see Lance’s patience sipping out of him the more he resisted, his smile slipping. Keith had to admit, he enjoyed watching Lance squirm. It would either break a facade of dishonestly and reveal this Centre’s real intentions, or he would establish some much needed boundaries. Either way, he’ll know where he swam.   
  
Hunk stood up then, pulling Lance along with him, interrupting whatever it was he wanted to snap in reply.   
  
“He won’t, right Lance?” he said. Lance took a while to grumble an affirmative.   
  
“Just… do these sets twice a day and eat the fish Hunk showed you. Got it?”   
  
“ _You_ got it,” Keith grumbled back, watching him let Hunk drag him away.   
  
“And don’t touch the third weight!” came a yell from the stairs, an afterthought.   
  
Keith waited for them to be gone before he dove in and tore into the nearest chunky, reddish-brown fish he saw. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will try to get in the next chapter sooner.  
> More art  
> [Brooding dolphin boy](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/163789997482/dolphin-merm-keith-is-from-my-fic-rehabilitation)  
> [Sketchdump 3](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/163528912932/more-rehabilitation-sketches-some-allura-from)
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr masterpost](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/160982566737/sad-and-soft-sheith-merm-au)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been edited to include another scene! Sorry for the confusion. I'll put a note in the next chapter too.

Pidge seethed. She counted on Allura arriving as late as the others so that she could be the one to talk to Shiro first thing when he woke up. Instead, she woke up in the office, much later than she planned because her phone was still lying somewhere around his meditank, her alarm clock had gone off uselessly too far away, probably disturbing Shiro’s rest. It was quite obnoxious, featuring lots of autotune and dubstep.

She stalked out of Allura’s office, banging the door shut harder than absolutely necessary. When she arrived at the med section she didn’t expect to see Shiro, fully awake, leaning his elbows over the edge and holding her phone.

“Are you… are you _scrolling_?” She said, growing increasingly annoyed. He didn’t notice her at first, but when he did he nearly dropped the device, catching it with his metal arm before it could plummet to the ground. Pidge let out a horrified yelp before scrambling up the stairs as fast as she could to snatch it away. He seemed so dumbfounded he let her get close and back out of his space without protest.

“I’m sorry,” he said, blinking. She couldn’t look at him for a few hot minutes, smothering the initial need to scream at him like she would her brother. Many things angered her nowadays, but nothing quite like people snooping around in her stuff. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “It was…”

She leveled him with a cold stare, but to his credit, he managed to stumble on through the explanation.

“It was yelling, so I tried to shut it off but then-”

“You found my blog,” she supplied, raising an accusatory eyebrow. Thumbing through the background apps, it was impossible to tell which ones he opened since she never bothered to close anything she was working on. It took her a second more to realize something else too. But there was no way. She must have left it unlocked or something.

Shiro had the decency to look embarrassed.

“It’s a good one,” he admitted. “I enjoyed the videos.”

Her annoyance dissolved right then. Pidge ran a blog about marine life, as well as documenting the progress of some of the cases at the Castle. Part awareness and part promotion for donations. Naturally there was a lot of sea life content, animals in their natural habitats, gifs and videos of reef explorations, even some shameless aesthetics she sometimes let Lance talk her into posting. No wonder it caught Shiro’s attention, when was the last time he’d seen these things for real?

She pocketed her phone, and let out a long breath. He looked like he expected to be punished.

“Sorry I freaked out. I just really _really_ hate people touching my stuff.”

“I understand.” Shiro looked so sickeningly relieved anything in her that was still annoyed completely melted away. She would never hurt him, hopefully he would come to know that. Being treated with basic respect was something he was probably readjusting to.

Pidge took her usual spot on the platform and sat down. Changing the subject would be good for them both.

“I wanted to be here when you woke up, but it didn’t work out. Were you okay here by yourself?” She watched him rearrange himself to lean chin against crossed arms. Merfolk who weren’t used to humans wouldn’t usually adopt this pose around someone they didn’t trust. She didn’t feel like she deserved it after her outburst, but was glad for it nonetheless.  

“I wasn’t alone. Allura was here.”

Pidge couldn’t help it, the corner of her mouth twitched. Of course.

“And what did you two talk about?” She asked, hoping he didn’t notice. Didn’t look like he did, his gaze was directed somewhere off to the distance, the windows.

“Just rehabilitation, she said I’ll be in this tank for about a week before you can move me somewhere else. I suppose one of those places out there?” His voice was so hopeful. He was an actual creature of the ocean, with knowledge and experiences in its vast beyond. Perhaps even more than anyone who’s ever been to the Centre, Shiro did not belong in an empty glass tank.

“Yes that sounds about right.”

She didn’t know what else to say. It was unusual for someone with his kind of past to be so easy and cooperative. They were silent for an awkward minute, her watching him watch the windows. She understood what drove him to fiddle with her phone.

“I suppose it can get kind of boring in this tank, we have to keep it sterile, that’s why it’s so far from everyone else, you understand.”

“Yea that sounds about right,” he parroted her own words back at her. Cheeky. She smiled. Probably now was as good a time as ever to tell him.

“If you’re up for it later tonight, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”  
  
\---  
  
Pidge couldn’t stay with him, working with the many other cases who needed her attention during the day. Shiro was pleased to hear that included in those was another, slightly younger dolphin merman, whom she planned on bringing by during the night. It’s been a long time since Shiro met any of his kind who weren’t either opponents or unreachable prisoners. He wasn’t left to stew in his own thoughts for long though.  
  
The doctor assured Shiro his arm will be dealt with, but before they could think about attempting a replacement, or even just an experimental removal, his body needed more time to heal. He was kind and talkative, with bright orange hair and a mustache that hid his entire upper lip. His name was Coran. Allura was called in when the doctor pronounced some of his wounds in need of stitches.  
  
“If we don’t take care of this it will not only scar but attract constant accumulation of grime and infection,” Coran explained. More side effects were listed, including possible loss of limb, digits, and fins, before Allura put a stop to his ramblings.  
  
“I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with, Shiro,” She said, her big blue eyes worrying. “But it needs to be addressed. This tank provides a safe environment for us to do it underwater so we don’t have to take you out for this. But I’m afraid we can’t take any risks regarding your arm.”  
  
Shiro looked from one person to another, understanding dawning from just hearing the apology in Allura’s voice. “Only your arm, and nothing else,” she added quickly. “The restraint will be removed as soon as we’re done, I promise.”  
  
He nodded consent after only a bit of consideration, wary of losing anymore of himself to something so easily fixable. They guided him to a place where the platform’s rail connected to the edge, a sturdy corner of metal with crossing bars to lean on. He was to extend his arm and let it be anchored at the wrist and elbow, keeping it wholly immobile and far from both himself and them. It put him in a vulnerable position, facing the platform with his back to the water, unable to see much. He could turn half way back in theory, but moving and needles didn’t mix together well.  
  
Allura crouched beside him after they were done and watched him for signs of anxiety, while Coran went away to change into water clothes. Shiro tried to be calm, tried to control his breathing. His left arm bunched under his chin on the platform to keep himself level. Allura had two fingers on his wrist, checking his pulse against a shiny watch.  
  
“You’re okay, Shiro. Breathe,” she said, he could see on her face his heart rate was quicker than it should be. She was trying to talk him through it, hearing his real name spoken in such soft tones had a good effect on him, but it could only do so much.  
  
_The restraint will be removed as soon as we’re done_ __  
__  
They weren’t the people who took him.  
  
_As soon as we’re done_  
  
“Shiro, Dr. Coran is going to go in and stitch the wound on your tailfin, are you ready?”  
  
“Yes.” His eyes were firmly focused on the windows. Just a week here and he’ll be somewhere nicer, bigger. He tried to let the thought soothe him now that his right bicep was starting to become sore.    
  
The doctor slid into the water with elegantly practiced ease, hardly splashing. He wore a smooth helmet that allowed him to see, breathe and hear underwater. Allura had her phone out, when he glanced over he could see his own tail, the image moving down down down to where Coran was looking at his fin and the bandages there.  
  
“Try not to move,” Allura said gently. Her hand never left his after she checked on his pulse, lightly pressing the back of his knuckles. He allowed it and turned his gaze back to the windows. It wasn’t painful per se, but initially it did cause him to twitch. Allura’s slightly hardening touch warned him not to move anymore and he obeyed, readjusting himself to the rhythm of Coran’s work. By the time he was finished rebandaging it Shiro got used to the sensation. The next few wounds were on his dorsal and left fin, as well as the back of the tail, those were done without much outright discomfort.  
  
Coran emerged then and took his helmet off for a breather.  
  
“You’re doing great,” Allura soothed, “only a few more on your torso and we’re done.”

Shiro sucked in a breath, letting his eyes slide back to her, and then his chained up arm. He tested it for slack, there was none. _Good. That is a good thing. That is the point._ __  
  
_As soon as we’re done, I promise_  
  
Tail skin wasn’t as sensitive as torso skin. When Coran went back in the water and experimentally pressed a palm to his back Shiro’s tail bucked forward and crushed against the glass. His arm yanked at the rail uselessly before he could stop himself. Allura snatched her hand back from him in a moment of shock, but then it was back, now firmly pressed against his shoulder.  
  
“Breathe,” she commanded. “Stop moving Shiro, you know this. You need to calm down.”    
  
His entire body ached and stung with phantom hand prints holding his arms, his wrists, his neck. The memory of them bloomed into a real, tangible sensation. His chest started to heave, his breathing growing more and more vocal.  
  
“Shiro listen to me,” Allura’s voice was filtering through a ringing in his ears now. “You are safe. You’re with us, we want to help. I’m not going to tranq you, I know you can ride this out.”  
  
He put his face in the crook of his elbow, taking slow shuddery breaths. Allura continued to murmur things into his ear while Coran seized the opportunity to do the rest. He felt every stitch and tried not to imagine Haggar’s prodding tools. His right hand was clenched in a tight metal fist but he was able to keep it from activating until Coran was done.  
  
It didn’t even register that the doctor wasn’t in the water anymore and that his arm was now free. He just stayed there, pinned under Allura’s grounding touch, letting her voice wash over him as soon as the sound of his own breath was no longer deafening.  
  
“It’s done. It’s over. It’s over…”  
  
_I promise_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A mildly spoilery doodle of Shiro before things went very sideways for him, enjoying some peace and quiet with A Friend:  
> [Pre arena Shiro](https://68.media.tumblr.com/76daeb22f2c26ba0e60fc194c5cc93fe/tumblr_oukeuhu5tW1su20b4o2_1280.jpg)  
> [Shiro getting treated](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/173192299607/definite-yes-to-that-shiro-suffering-sketch-yy)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The previous chapter has been edited to include another scene, so please read that before you continue on with this one. I'm sorry for the confusion, hope this one is good for you!

It took Keith a few tries to get himself on board. Pidge yelped as the cart nearly slid into the water, merman and all, when his arms gave out the first time. It wasn’t the handler’s fault that Keith overworked himself in the current and tripled the sets Lance told him to do, but having someone to blame for his shaky muscles felt better than being mad at just himself. Hunk’s dietary instructions sat uncomfortably in his stomach, making him heavy. Stupid handlers.  
  
Right now his arms were so sore he didn’t even bother holding himself up while Pidge carted him around. His tail was once again dragging on the floor.  
  
“I gotta come up with something else, this won’t fly for much longer,” Pidge muttered to herself, grunting under the effort.  
  
“I agree,” Keith said, suddenly inspired. “We should tell Allura about this.” That stopped her short, Keith nearly rolled over to the floor.  
  
“Don’t you dare. Do you know how much trouble I’ll be in?”  
  
Keith made an attempt to look at her, even if it was pulling on muscles he didn’t know he had. He was saying this wrong.    
  
“I don’t mean what we’ve done already. But maybe you can convince her in the future. Make her at least consider it?” Pidge’s eyebrows knit together under her glasses.  
  
“She’s not gonna okay this any time soon. Shiro is considered… dangerous.”  
  
“You mean his arm?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Then how come you’re okay with this?”  
  
Pidge resumed her labor once more, jarring Keith into looping an arm around the handle for support.  
  
“It only activates when he’s having a panic attack. I know he won’t hurt anyone on purpose. Today he let Coran stitch him up without incident.”  
  
“He let a human go into his tank?” Keith said, dumbfounded.  
  
“Seriously, that’s what you’ve retained from everything I just said.” Pidge was extra cranky when physical effort was involved, he noticed. She looked like she wanted to say something else but stuffed it last minute.  
  
“What,” Keith prompted.  
  
“Nothing,” she said. “Hush up now the belugas will hear us.”  
  
\---  
  
  
Shiro lay at the bottom of his tank, dorsal fin nearly touching the flat floor, back curved lightly against a corner, arms crossed over chest. They would unfold once in a while when his half-awake brain brought him up to breathe. Pidge tapped the glass and he twitched awake, shrugging the sleep off with a shake of his tail before floating over to them.  
  
He looked amused at the sight, pressing a hand to the glass in greeting. Keith never thought of himself this way, but he understood now why people constantly glued themselves to his display back at the zoo. The water ruffled Shiro’s white hair over sharp, grey eyes. His tail, twice as thick as Keith’s and longer too, moved gently back and forth for balance. The effect was hypnotic. He looked so alive now, so animated, nothing like the shriveled broken thing he bandaged last night.  
  
He nodded at Pidge’s pointing and made for the surface.  
  
The elevator trip was excruciating and loud and Keith couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Did Shiro know about last night? Would he be mad? He didn’t have much time to come up with something before Pidge was spilling him off the cart to arrange himself belly and elbows on the platform. His tail stuck out in the air between the safety rails where the platform ended, twitching nervously.  
  
Shiro was already there, anchoring himself with the metal arm to the edge. The other hand, flesh and bandages, stopped on its course halfway towards Keith, a waiting handshake. Keith stared at it and blinked. What a human thing to do. Eventually he took it, but meeting his eyes was still too difficult.  
  
“I’m Shiro,” his voice was laced with the thickness of sleep, though he didn’t seem grumpy or disturbed at the visit. Pidge must have told him they were coming. “It’s good to meet you.”    
  
“You too,” Keith mumbled, giving him his name before glancing sideways when the corner of his eye detected movement. Pidge was leaving. “Wait, where are you going?” he called after her, getting his hand back under himself.  
  
“I’m just going to check on something, be back in a bit.” She was already at the bottom of the stairs, not even bothering to turn around. Keith’s stomach sure did turn. He would be stuck here without her help getting around. He wasn’t even sure he could get back into the habitat by himself. Shiro watched him fret for a bit, then looked up at something on the wall.  
  
“I think I know what she’s doing,” he said, pointing with a black metal finger. There was a camera mounted on the wall there, the indicator LED a dim blinking dot. Sure enough, it blinked for the last time that night. Keith didn’t even notice the Castle had security cameras.  
  
“This… isn’t allowed, is it?” Shiro wondered.  
  
“No, not really.”  
  
“And was it your idea?” There was a smile in Shiro’s voice when he said it, it was what made Keith finally look at him.  
  
“Partly,” Keith admitted, “I wanted to meet someone like me, so Pidge set this up,”

“You must have made quite an impression for her to do all this,” Shiro remarked, that amused gentle smile softening his features.

“I splashed the Centre psychologist.”

“You what?”

“It was my second day, ” Keith summarized cryptically. “Pidge has been… good. Better than most.”

“Everyone here seems really nice so far,” Shiro said, nodding to himself. Then added, looking at Keith’s face, “You don’t agree.”  
  
No he didn’t agree. He grew up with their schemes, and manipulations and positive reinforcement training methods. Soaking it all up when he was young and boiling in it now.  
  
“I don’t trust them. Humans are always nice when they want something.”  
  
“Well,” Shiro said flatly, “not always.”  
  
The spike of anger in Keith lost its edge when he realized how profoundly insensitive he was being. Shame came too then, creeping in regret’s shadow. It was hypocritical of him, talking about trust when he didn’t deserve it himself.  
  
“I went into your tank,” he blurted out quickly. Shiro’s quiet, too calm “Hmm?” prompted him to elaborate. “Last night, when you were out. Pidge brought me in so I could help with your bandages.” He waited for the anger, the ever present flames of his own temper preparing him for the worst. It didn’t come. Instead Shiro just looked at him, with those sad grey eyes, and that smile.  
  
“Are you _apologising_ ?”  
  
Keith didn’t get it. Maybe Shiro wanted him to actually say it.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said, watching the other merman for a reaction. It had to be passive aggressive, an expression he no doubt picked up from the humans. Like the handshake.  
  
“You’re apologising for... patching me up.”  
  
“ _I’m apologising for going into your tank_ ,” Keith clarified, baffled that he needed to. It was rude and wrong and were it him, he would be furious. Ridiculously, Shiro’s smile softened.

“It’s okay.”  
  
“You’re not angry? You should be angry,”  Keith said. How could Shiro be so calm about this? About anything? How could he float there and truly tell him _it’s okay_ .  
  
“I am angry.” Shiro used the metal hand to make a vague, open palmed gesture at the surroundings of the Castle, then promptly hid it under his chin and looked at Keith. “Just not at this. And not at you.”  
  
He didn’t look angry, not really. He looked exhausted. Keith didn’t remember his hands balling into fists but he did make an effort to relax in the awkward silence that followed. He had no business telling Shiro how to feel. When he opened his mouth to apologise again he was interrupted.  
  
“Hello again,” Pidge announced herself, coming to sit beside where Keith was lying. By now he'd grown so familiar with her presence and particular style of handling, he wasn't really bothered. Shiro looked from one to the other, fluidly adjusting himself to the shift in company, their conversation stored away somewhere in the air between them. Keith couldn’t quite do that, his mind needing time still to process everything. So he opted instead to hush up.  
  
“I’m sorry but we’re gonna have to wrap this up soon, I have to be home at some point tonight,” Pidge said. It meant she had no intention to chaperone them, Keith realized, otherwise she’d come back after turning off the cameras. “But there is one thing I want to do before we go.”  
  
She took out her phone, but waited before turning on the camera.  
  
“Shiro, can you show me how your arm works?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doodles of Keith eating a fish :))  
>  [*cronch*](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/164659099697/some-mer-keith-munching-on-fish-from-my-fic)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *'blackfish' is a nickname for pilot whales

Keith’s eyes were still seeing patches and spots of colour that weren’t there, even though it’s been some time since he got back into his habitat. Screwing his eyelids shut harder didn’t help.   
  
Unlike Pidge, who was looking at her phone, Keith had made the mistake of looking directly at Shiro’s hand when he activated it. Pidge asked Shiro to touch one finger to the platform, and through the cracks between his fingers, Keith could see the surface begin to sizzle immediately. Some of the heat transferred to the rest of the metal under him, the spot Shiro was touching started glowing too, a bright orange against bright purple. He put it away quickly, once Pidge had had enough, and before the whole platform could get scorching hot.     
  
Later when Pidge carted Keith back he couldn’t get it out of his head. Shiro looked so mortified once he realized the patch of platform was probably going to stay like that, a spot of it seared and misshapen. Mortified at the prospect of someone seeing. Of Allura seeing.   
  
It was obvious. Despite the trust speech, despite his seemingly relaxed disposition, despite everything, Shiro was afraid of punishment.    
  
\--- __  
__  
_ “Don’t mention this to Allura,” _ Pidge said, before carting Keith away on that thing. Shiro wasn’t planning to. It was something to look forward to, something to do in the never ending boredom that was this square, empty tank. He wouldn’t give it up. Not the only other one of his kind he was able to talk to in months…  _ a year _ .   
  
From what little Shiro gathered, the guy was likely raised in captivity, and had no semblance of what it was like to be free, in the ocean, where merfolk belonged. He knew that humans did that, how they liked collecting and putting pretty things they find in glass boxes to look at. He had  _ been  _ one of those things. But he hadn’t been born one. Molded to be one. It was remarkable really, that someone like Keith was able to break through that glass. Shiro wasn’t sure given this lot, that he would be strong enough to do the same.    
  
\---   
  
The next morning Allura came to his habitat and it was all Keith could do to hide his disdain that the chair was back. She was planning to stay. He’s been thinking all night about what he wanted to say to her but really, his mind kept coming back to one thing.    
  
“What happens to the merfolk who don’t pass rehabilitation?” he asked darkly. Allura’s white eyebrows bunched together as she leaned forward on her knees and papers.    
  
“Rehabilitation isn’t a test, Keith. It’s not something you can pass, or fail at,” she said, “It’s just a matter of time and progress. It differs from one individual to another but essentially the objective  _ is _ getting you out of here and ready for life in the ocean.”   
  
“Okay but what if it lasts longer than you thought, what if a merperson isn’t ready ever. What then?”    
  
“Are you worried you won’t be ready?” she countered. Question with a question. Keith had to shake his head both as an answer and to clear it. This was a zoo tactic. He was ready, he was born ready, but he wasn’t the one with the liberty to release himself.    
  
“It can’t all be what you crank it up to be.”    
  
“And why not?” Allura asked, a minute change in her tone indicating she was slightly miffed. Keith watched her get up from the chair and go dig something out of her bag, which was left in a safer, splash-free zone. She thumbed through her phone before showing it to Keith.    
  
“If I give it to you, do you promise not to submerge it?” Keith nodded and took the phone, curious. He settled on leaning his elbows off to the side by Allura’s feet as she retook her place, watching him from above. He was looking at a picture gallery. Allura leaned down to tap a long fingernail at the first picture, then slid it to one side, replacing it with another. Keith quickly got the hang of it and repeated the gesture with his own still wet fingers.    
  
It was picture after picture of Hunk. Sometimes Lance and Pidge were in it, Allura’s hair made an appearance a few times. But it was mostly: Hunk sitting on some stairs writing in a notebook with his tongue sticking out, Hunk in water clothes striking a pose with Lance, also in water clothes, Hunk driving the truck...etc’.    
  
Then the pictures began to feature a medical tank, like Shiro’s. The first picture Keith took note of was of Hunk sitting cross-legged on the floor next to its base, a dark and bulky tail floated out of focus in the corner. He glanced up at Allura, and she smiled at him, openly watching his reaction. Keith didn’t like the eye contact so he turned back to the phone. As the merperson began to dominate the gallery, Keith began to focus more, look at the pictures longer, study them more closely.    
  
The merperson was much bigger than Hunk, in one picture he stood on the floor at his full height and the mer stretched themselves behind him in the tank. Their tail was inky black, similar in shape to Keith’s but closer in size to Shiro’s, if not bigger. At some point the medical tank was replaced with a habitat. Pictures of Hunk squatting on the edge of a platform showed the merperson looking, impossibly, even bigger and healthier than before, interacting and smiling and happy.    
  
“This is Shay,” Allura supplied. “A blackfish mermaid.”    
  
Keith browsed through pictures of Hunk swimming with her, wearing some kind of yellow and white helmet when submerged. There were videos too. Short clips of Shay swimming around, training, eating, hunting, talking to Hunk on the edge, breaching in a beautiful arc and disappearing. Whoever took that one dropped the phone in the water and she dove to get it, laughing and bubbling till it was cut off. Keith looked up at Allura again, the look on her face had his hands itch to throw the phone somewhere far away. There were many many more pictures.   
  
“Is this supposed to impress me or something?” he said hotly, resisting the urge on account of his promise. “She’s here with you guys and she’s happy. Big deal.” Humans could domesticate yet another merperson. How innovative. She was stupid enough apparently, to let them close, to trust them. Big as she looked, she was probably very, very young. It’s the only way Keith could rationalize anyone being so naive, just as he once was.    
  
“But she’s not here with us,” Allura said casually, expectantly, and Keith nearly dropped the phone anyway. Was Allura showing him pictures of a dead mermaid? Was this a taunt? A threat? His eyes were wide with shock for a few more seconds before she seemed to realize her phrasing. “Oh no, Keith, god no! Not like that, just… keep scrolling please.” Allura folded her hands and looked away, but Keith still saw her glancing at him from the corner of his eye. Slowly, mechanically, he turned back to the phone and flipped through to the end.    
  
_ Shay hanging in the transport canvas. _ __  
__  
_ Hunk climbing in the back of the truck as the haul closed, the corner of a tank visible inside. _ __  
__  
_ Shay lying down on the sand of a sunny beach. _   
  
Keith blinked. And scrolled again, slower.    
__  
_ Hunk and Shay, holding hands. The water touching Shay’s stomach, and Hunk’s bare feet.  _ __  
__  
_ Hunk, walking in the water with his helmet on, Shay’s tail peeking from out of the waves further away, the sun high in the sky.  _ __  
_  
_ __ Hunk walking back out, wet and dark, the sun kissing the horizon low behind his back. 

Keith stared at the picture of the mermaid and Hunk holding hands. Allura didn’t move to take the phone away, and so he flicked all the way back to the first few pictures Shay appeared in. She was so different, paler, smaller, scared. By the end of the gallery it was like he was looking at a completely different mermaid.    
  
“How long?” Keith asked, trying not to hope, but the feeling he had the first time he was introduced to the habitat was now creeping back on him.    
  
“A year and two months,” Allura said. He didn’t need to look at her to know she was doing the thing again, with her face, the soft, sad thing he wanted to drown her for on their first meeting. He was angry at himself for letting her kind words get to him then. Letting himself feel comforted when she looked displeased with his treatment at the zoo. He couldn’t bring himself to trust her. Not fully. Not yet. But something in him was beginning to, and it terrified him.    
  
_ Trusting Allura was dangerous _ , he reminded himself. It wasn’t the same as trusting Pidge. But he couldn’t shut her out forever, Keith needed Allura to trust  _ him  _ to speed up his release process. So what if some tiny part of him actually  _ wanted  _ to be nice to her.   
  
“I honestly don’t believe it should take you this long, Keith,” she said, feeding kindling to that spark of hope he wouldn’t admit to having. “So don’t waste too much time worrying about what might not happen for you, and focus on making it happen. Does that make sense?”    
  
Keith forced himself to meet her eyes this time, returning her phone.   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
\---   
  
Shiro woke up with the light again, noticing that the windows were left open. He wondered again if the Castle had any semblance of outer security for them to be able to be so liberal with the measures inside. How good was Pidge really that she was able to bypass it for the sake of him and Keith spending some time together?

As if summoned by his thoughts, he heard Pidge’s soft shoes making their way down the hall towards him. She was hauling a bucket of what he guessed was his breakfast. Since he woke up from the sedatives they’ve been steadily increasing and varying his meals, so as not to overwhelm him. Allowing the fish to swim in with him all day was deemed unsanitary so someone usually came by a few times a day with some live fish for him to nibble on. When the humans weren’t looking, Shiro used his prosthetic hand to sear warmth into them.    


With Pidge he felt less self conscious. She didn't seem to be wary of his arm like Allura was, or outright scared like many of the handlers. No, Pidge was fascinated by it and Shiro could be a little more relaxed around her knowing he too kept a few of her secrets. 

They made small talk while they ate, Pidge joined him, dangling her feet in the water, sandwich in hand. 

“I brought you something,” she said around a mouthful of bread and cheese and pulled a square screen out of her hoodie’s front pocket. Shiro threw a fish skeleton in the bucket and accepted it from her. “Old tablet my brother gave me, I got a waterproof case for it but try not to keep it under for too long.”    
  
Shiro looked up at her gratefully, still somewhat embarrassed about the phone incident. He didn’t recall ever touching one of these things, certainly not during his captivity, but his hands seemed to easily find the right functions on Pidge’s phone. The tablet was somehow, even easier.    
  
“Thank you, Pidge,” he said, looking down at the home screen. There was a blank space there to input some text. Pidge started to say something about a speech to text function so he wouldn’t need to read.    
  
“Oh I can read,” he said absently, staring at the little writing line indicator appearing and disappearing. He found that, just like with the phone, he knew the password. His flesh fingers spelled out the two words, and the device unlocked.    
  
__ KatieHoult  
  
It took Shiro some time to vaguely realize how odd this was, and how quiet Pidge was being. He looked up to see her wide eyes staring back at him.    
  
“You  _ are  _ him,” she said wondrously. “You’re the merman Matt was researching!”    
  
“I’m what?” Pidge was looking at him like he held the answer to some riddle, but none of what she said made any sense. Quiet as she was before, she seemed to be getting riled up now.    
  
“How would you know my real name? How would you know how to read? You must know my brother, his name is Matt Hoult!” Shiro looked down at the unlocked tablet, processing what he had just done. But when he tried to recall how he knew to do that, he couldn’t quite reach.    
  
“I’m… I’m sorry, I don’t remember this person. Is he here at the Castle?” Pidge opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to rethink it.    
  
“Shiro… Do you remember how you were captured?”   
  
He tried to recall, but the details were hazy. He realized with a bit of alarm there weren’t any specific events he could conjure up from the entirety of the past year, as well as the time leading up to it.   
  
“There was a boat,” Shiro tried, “and… a lot of people…” and hands, and violence, and blackness. So much blackness. “I can’t remember.”    
  
“You must remember  _ something! _ ” Pidge snapped, and by way of reflex, Shiro shrank away. Her eyes were wide and searching and wet, her gaze pinning him in place. Then she shrank back too, pulling her glasses off and covering her face.    
  
Shiro’s hands gripped the edge until the tension left his body. He watched Pidge carefully as she dissolved into shaking shoulders and sniffling hiccups, trying to understand. Eventually instead of pawing at her face her hands hugged her knees close to her body and the shakiness began to subside. She still wouldn’t look at him.   
  
“My brother, Matt, disappeared about around the time we figure you were taken. My father disappeared shortly after, when he tried to find him. I didn’t think about it until I saw you with my phone yesterday.” Her voice was still shaky but it was getting steadier the longer she talked. Shiro took it all in, but it still made little sense to him.   
  
“So this was…” Shiro trailed off before he could say  __ ‘a test’.  This wasn’t about him at all. Pidge got up and made straight for the stairs.    
  
“Keep the tablet,” he heard her say, rounding a corner of the hall.    
  
\---   
  
Keith pumped his tail against the current like his life depended on it. He couldn’t get it out of his head how much of a difference a year and two months made for Shay, how grown she was and how strong she looked. He wanted to be ready, he wanted to be strong like Shiro, so that there wouldn't be a shred of doubt in anyone about where Keith truly belonged.    
  
He’s been at it for maybe an hour when Lance’s voice called his name. Out of spite, Keith stayed in the current until he was absolutely out of air before breaching as far away from the edge as he could and still hold a conversation.    
  
“Glad you could join us,” Lance said, even though Hunk’s absence was distinctly noticeable. They were always together. Lance wasn’t wearing his usual water clothes either. Ood, Keith thought the guy probably slept in them.    
  
“Hi,” Keith said shortly. Lance put a hand on the back of his neck and Keith delighted in watching him shuffle there for a bit, unable to leave the platform. It felt good, being in control.   
  
“Could you… come a bit closer? I want to show you something and, I want to like. Apologise.” Keith raised his eyebrows, and swam over. Lenient. Allura had already said to him the handlers were there to help him get better. Still Keith insisted on handling things on his terms. If the Castle presumed to do things differently than the zoo it should be able to prove it. Lance sat down, the hunch in his back making him look smaller than he was.    
  
“Hunk and I talked and I realized I was kind of a jerk yesterday. I suppose you don’t have a very good experience with handlers and I get it, man. It was a difficult day for us and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.” He said it all at once and Keith was genuinely impressed. It really sounded like Lance thought about this a lot. He let himself swim the rest of the distance left between them and took a deep breath.    
  
“I don’t like people coming into my space,” he admitted, somehow it seemed right. He wasn’t sorry for telling Lance off and to his credit, the handler didn’t push for any kind of similar sentiment from Keith on the subject. It was sincere.    
  
“I guess that makes sense,” Lance said, a relieved smile on his face. “I said I won’t go in without your permission and I meant it. Even if I was a jerk about it.”    
  
“Thanks.”    
  
A short silence later, Lance remembered himself.    
  
“Ok so I also came over to show you this,” he took his phone out and put it on the platform in front of Keith, a video, the most ridiculous thing that Keith had ever seen, started playing.    
  
Lance was underwater, wearing the same helmet Hunk wore when swimming with Shay in Allura’s pictures, and, more dumbfoundingly, he was sporting a merfolk tail. Or a crude imitation of one fitted over his legs. It bent at the knees where merfolk, of course, did not have knees.    
  
Keith frowned and looked closer. Video-Lance waved and flashed two fingers before, with surprising grace, swimming over to a weight like the ones he deposited in Keith’s habitat yesterday. The bigger one Keith was told not to touch. Lance then slung the strap over the fake tail and started lifting, keeping his hands planted on the ground.   
  
“It was Hunk’s idea,” Lance said from beside him, his chin in his hand as he watched himself dreamily. “See? The closer the strap is to your tailfin the harder it gets. So don’t start too far off the middle.”    
  
Keith watched Video-Lance flop over and do a different set.    
  
“This one works on the opposite muscles,” Lance explained. “You have to be consistent. I hear you’ve been adding to the sets. Your arms hurting yet?”    
  
“Yes,” Keith said begrudgingly. It was his own damn fault.    
  
“Good, so now you know that muscle fatigue is a bitch. Let them rest today. Do the tail exercise three times on each side,” Lance said, and started to get up, hands in his pockets. Unlike the tight water clothes, these ones were baggy, like Lance was trying to hide in them.    
  
“Wait, Lance,” Keith said, not believing it the moment the words left his mouth. “Could you stay? Make sure I’m doing it right?”    
  
The smile that spread over Lance’s face could have cut it in half.    
  
“Yeah!”   
  
\---   
  
Shiro wasn’t sure if having the tablet was another one of Pidge’s little unallowed escapades, or if he could just use it out in the open, letting the Castle staff see him. He compromised by keeping to a further patch of the platform, laying it flat so he could glide his fingers over it more discreetly than having it propped up.    
  
The day revealed itself to be quite uneventful aside from Allura coming by and teaching him some breathing and mindfulness exercises. He practiced them for a while, knowing that tomorrow they would need to change all of his bandages again and he couldn’t keep psyching himself up every time it had to be done.    
  
When the battery on the tablet died he looked up to see that it was dark. Noticing the ambient facility noises around him were quieter and quieter as people locked up for the night.    
  
Pidge didn’t come again that day, and neither did Keith.     


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to do longer chapters from now on, focusing on the events of entire days instead of some badly paced handful of scenes! So it might take me longer to update but I hope the wait will be worth it!
> 
> [Some art!](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/165668443672/hey-im-updating-chapter-11-of-rehabilitation-in-a)
> 
> [Some meta!](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/165648221827/rehabilitation-meta-nobody-asked-for-keiths-fins)


	12. Chapter 12

Keith stayed up as long as he could but in the end had to put himself to sleep giving up a few hours into the night. Pidge didn’t come.  
  
He supposed three nights in a row would have been too much to ask, Pidge had a life outside of the Castle. Outside of him. And he wasn’t entitled to all of her attention. It was either that, or something had happened. He didn’t want to entertain the possibility Pidge wasn’t allowed to see him anymore.   
  
_In the morning she will come._   
  
  
It wasn’t morning when Keith woke up to unfamiliar voices dragging him out of his short rest. Two men, speaking in hushed tones, their steps quiet on the usually loud metal of his habitat platforms in a way that betrayed obvious effort.  
  
“Are you sure this is the one?” one man said, “There’s two of them in here isn’t there? Would they put them together?”   
  
“No,” came and answering voice, older, deeper, rougher. “He’s too dangerous. This place is crawling with bleeding heart hippies, they wouldn’t risk one of their precious projects getting hurt.”   
  
“The other tank is smaller, wouldn’t they want him contained?”   
  
“Their other mer is smaller too, a child, I think.”   
  
Keith’s teeth clenched as he pressed his lips together, allowing no air to escape. These men weren’t Castle staff. He jammed himself into a nook between the rocks on the bottom, hiding from the bright light beam that probed his habitat. A flashlight one of them brought to snuff him out.   
  
“What a waste, mers don’t need this much space,” the one holding the flashlight said. At his side, the other one dropped something big on the platform, Keith heard the metal creak beneath it and the sounds of clasps unhinging. He put a hand to his face as he felt his lungs begin to crave oxygen.  
  
“Big ones like Champion get antsy in a small space. You could tell the arena was a relief for him every time they got him out of that day tank,” the older one answered, the clicking sounds continued as he worked at assembling something metallic, mechanical? Keith couldn’t tell for sure. Panic started to settle in as he realized it wouldn’t be much longer before he’d start to convulse, letting the air bubbles out that would signal his position. He had to do something before whatever it was they brought with them was put to use.   
  
Desperately, he looked around for inspiration, using the searching light beam as a guide. They weren’t going in where Keith could drown them, no they were waiting for him to come up for air. He had to do it sooner or later, it needed to count.  
  
“How long can they stay underwater?”   
  
“Assuming he’s awake? He was timed for twelve minutes.”   
  
“You think he’s awake?”  
  
“I’m sure he is,” the older one said, his voice betraying what Keith imagined to be a nasty smile. “You don’t really sleep, do you Champion?” There was one last heavy _click_ as something slid into place and the man’s footsteps shuffled closer to the edge by his colleague.   
  
Keith couldn’t wait anymore, his lungs began to twitch, and he used the dwindling bits of air he had left to send his voice in search of Lance’s weights. The moment he had their location, he moved, swimming away and around the light beam as it trained on his last whereabouts. He felt something wheeze past him, the sharp sting of medicine light but noticeable in the water. Tranquilizer dart.  
  
“He’s moving! Keep the light on him!”   
  
Shot shot shot. Miss miss miss. Keith changed directions rapidly, tearing the water like a shark mad for blood.   
  
“Damn it he’s fast!”   
  
Bubbles shot out of Keith’s open mouth as his hands frantically searched for the weights, big, and then small, and then none, his chest tightening painfully. He grabbed for the nearest strap and shot up with everything he had left, breaching right at the edge of the platform where the humans stood, momentarily stunned that he dared come so close. His body arced as high as it would go, with the weight swinging behind him. He aimed blindly in the confusion of the splash, and hit the younger man’s hands before descending back under.   
  
There was a cry of pain, followed by a string of curses and another splash. The flashlight sank after Keith, blinking and sparkling as it filled with water and hit the bottom.   
  
“That’s not Champion,” the older human said, deftly calm in the face of his friend’s misfortune. Shuffling and footsteps, the younger human sobbing in shock, the smell of rusty blood. Keith breached in a further patch of the habitat, breathing hard and hiding behind a rock. No matter, they were leaving.  
  
Keith took a few more hurried breaths and screamed. A high pitched banshee shriek from the top of his lungs. Soon enough, a cacophony of grumpy half awake marine creatures worked itself up to a steady alarm, there was no quiet to be had once the belugas woke up. The lights turned on signaling security took note.   
  
In the midst of the panicked noises the Castle inhabitants were making, an answering call, concern in its lower, rougher notes echoed its way through to him. It wasn’t words, but Keith knew it was a question. He answered it with a calmer, quieter tone. Letting himself sink down under and let the water muffle the noise a bit.    
  
They didn’t get to him, Shiro was fine.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this one is small, I've been rethinking entire day chapters as it happens to fuck up the pacing and also I actually don't know what I'm doing most of the time. Have a little art:
> 
> [Lance and Pidge from ch11](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/165721301432/rehabilitation-doodles-hes-so-proud-of-himself%20)
> 
> [keith defending himself](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/172358031882/plane-doodle-of-keith-in-chapter-12-of-my-sheith)
> 
> Also the amazing @shadows-demon on tumblr coloured my first Rehabilitation illust and it came out lovely, give it a look! 
> 
> [coloured merms](https://shadows-demon.tumblr.com/post/166150929129/little-bit-of-colored-lineart-of-tane-p)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We interrupt this program to bring you the baby Keith content nobody asked for.

Keith wasn’t old enough to know what the humans meant when they said he needed a space of his own. Now that he could hunt on his own and speak, having outgrown total dependency on his parents, he was going to get his own tank. He hadn’t known anger till the transport door opened and it became apparent that his new tank was in another zoo.  
  
He’d put up a tantrum then. Heat coursing through his tiny body leaving him restless, breathless. The faces of the humans were foreign the space was different the colours weren’t right. The more of his questions went unanswered the quicker, louder his voice became. He’s never screamed at a human before, but the reaction wasn’t what he expected. They just sat there, at the edge. Their waiting arms just as welcoming, their faces just as soft as their words trying to calm him down. He’d dive only to be back up there with them again when his young lungs depleted of air. There was nowhere else for him to go.  
  
In the end Keith found himself clinging to the edge, crying, letting them touch his shoulders and their comfort wash over him. At some point someone dangled their legs in the water and Keith attached himself to them, like he would his mother’s tail.  
  
\---  
  
He quickly settled into his new routine. A strong, adaptable child, a quick study, easy to mold. Easy to use. In the blurry, emotional rush of Keith’s early days at the new zoo he’d let his handlers convince him some more company would be fun. It would be good for him.  
  
It wasn’t long before his tank became open for visitors and their children to come play with the adorable dolphin merchild. It was wonderful at first. Keith was missing his parents terribly and his handlers weren't around all the time. The profit they said he brought in for the zoo allowed for tank and display expansions, nicer toys, nicer food. For a time, Keith was happy to oblige.    
  
He was asked to do tricks, say things, dive for stuff people threw in the water for him. The most popular request was letting children hold onto his dorsal fin and lead them around the surface while their parents took photos. Keith liked kids. He liked making them smile and hearing them laugh. He liked how easy they were to satisfy and how much praise was heaped on him for things as simple as holding hands.  
  
Adults weren’t usually interested in anything more than watching and documenting, the flash of cameras was something Keith learned to ignore. So it was unusual when a woman who looked to be closer in age with his handlers than the children he was used to, arrived for a session. There was something different in how she stepped in the water, how she didn’t grab Keith’s fin when he obediently offered it, where a child would jump on the opportunity. She pushed with her fake leg fins till they were in the middle of the tank, leaving her back to the half interested handlers.  
  
When Keith swam over to face her, she smiled, and said she was a reporter. It wasn’t widely known amongst humans that merfolk can speak, she explained. A lot of what she said went over Keith’s head. Many words were outside of his vocabulary, but he got the gist of it that she wanted to ask him about… himself. His thoughts, his experiences in the zoo. Keith felt a rush of excitement, as she asked him to say his name, took his picture and proceeded to ask a great deal of questions.  
  
Some of them were easy. He happily told her about the sessions, about his eating habits, his handler’s names, what his day looked like. She seemed interested in the particulars like what things the staff could ask him to do, or how they taught him the tricks he’s been performing, how did the humans cut his hair?  
  
She mentioned ‘the ocean’ and he told her that was the name of his first zoo, as everyone kept referring to him and merfolk in general as ‘coming from the ocean’. But she didn’t seem convinced. Her other questions were even harder.  
  
“How old are you?” “How long have you been here?” “Do you know where your parents are?”  
  
Keith repeated the words ‘I don’t know’ and each time something vile coated more and more of his thoughts. She thanked him for his time, and took another picture. He only noticed her do it after the flash of the camera was already fading from the little rectangle on top. He wasn’t ready, he didn’t remember to smile.  
  
\---  
  
A few days later, Keith started to notice it. In the way the handlers looked at him nervously, how there seemed to be way less of them now, how they were reluctant to touch him and praise him. Something changed, Keith started to get the distinctive feeling that he was in trouble, that he was being punished. The humans never outright done anything bad to him, they’d never strike him, or yell at him. Their voices were forceful sometimes but it was never anger, it was always just training. But now, they won’t even look at him as they released his bounty for him to hunt.  
  
He tried to ask what was wrong, but they always found some excuse to be elsewhere handlers he’d known from day one said they didn’t know, or outright lied that nothing was, in fact, wrong. More time passed, and he realized there hasn’t been a single session since the reporter came around.  
  
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked the one who fed him one morning, the one who’s legs he clung to on his first day, the one who stayed with him all night after his transfer. She only shook her head as she turned to climb out of the tank, but Keith grabbed hold of her sleeve. He knew his eyes were big and purple and beautiful. He knew because she said it to him over and over, how she could never resist him. He looked up at her and felt his eyes dampen outside of the water, felt the tears coming. “What did I do?”  
  
She told him.  
  
The reporter had published a less than flattering piece about how merfolk are treated in zoos. A several page article that spanned four other zoos in the area. A picture of him was in it, looking sad and confused.. The zoo’s reputation plummeted directly afterwards, as the public cried in outrage.  
  
Keith hasn’t ever really considered his existence in the zoo as unnatural. Memories of his parents were vague, but he was quite sure they never acted like anything was wrong. The fish he hunted were supplied by his handlers, his water pumped and regulated by the zoo staff, there wasn’t any place for him outside of the water, and when he was being transported, he’d seen nothing but land.  
  
But the thoughts festered in his mind like the green moss covering the bottom of one corner in his tank. Cleaning staff couldn’t quite reach all of the spots, and now, no amount of words or coddling could get the seed of this growing wrongness out of him.  
  
\---  
  
As the year turned Keith has had a few months to get used to the renovations. A bigger tank, up to code standards, a completely different crew of staff and handlers, ones not disgraced by the exposure in the initial article, and all the other ones that followed as the zoo was investigated for malpractice. They let his hair grow in, the last time they’d cut it was when he was still having the sessions, cropped but leaving some curl there still, had to look cute then, groomed. Now they wanted him looking wild and regal.  
  
Things became strained between him and the humans. In that time, Keith learned that humans took living things from where they belonged and reproduced their environment so that other humans could come and pay to see what it looks like, without going too far out of their comfort zone. He’d learned that his parents were most likely having another child to fill up another ‘vacancy’ at another zoo. He’d learned that since he was born in a zoo, he would never be able to survive on his own in the Ocean, a vast expanse of never ending water and life.  
  
Gradually, the renovations began to look less like a gallery of sea creatures and more like a mimicry of the inside of a tank on a scale Keith had never seen before. He had no access to the people beyond the glass, as the edge of it was sealed behind a wall. The entrance to the walk on platforms remained closed to anyone but staff. This was a new type of scrutiny; the silent, babbling looks of the visitors, the public feedings, the handler’s daily lectures about the nature of merfolk and ‘little known facts’ repeating over and over day after day…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been part 1 of the misadventures of baby Keith, tune in next uh?? whenever, for part 2. After that we'll continue in present day.
> 
> [Shadows-demon](https://shadows-demon.tumblr.com/) on tumblr has been amazing with colouring my sketches and lineart! Check out their work [HERE](https://shadows-demon.tumblr.com/post/166150929129/masterpost-mer-sheith-from-tane-p-fanfic) and [HERE!](https://shadows-demon.tumblr.com/post/168189288564/baby-mer-keith-and-mom-masterpost)
> 
> And [HERE](http://tane-p.tumblr.com/post/168187817287/keef-keef-keef-3-from-my-sheith-fic) is some of my art for this chapter  
> \---
> 
> UDATE (september 2018): Hey I am sorry this fic has stopped updating, I'm been having trouble with structuring it and having a lot of content to work with and rewrite is generally very stressful so I've been largely procrastinating and rethinking the whole thing. I want to get back to it, or completely rewrite it at some point, but while this project is in limbo, feel free to look at my other Sheith merm fic, [Weighted](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15406782/chapters/35757405), it's complete and has accompanying art to go with it! Thank you for sticking with me!


End file.
